How Has the Internet Influenced the Nature of Community Involvement in Assignment

How Has the net profit Influenced the Nature of Community Involvement in Development Decisions in Urban Planning - Assignment ExampleAccording to the International Association of Public Participation IAP2, whatever method which involves the public in making decisions or solving problems is kn give birth as a stakeholder engagement. The Internet has contributed significantly in increasing stakeholder engagement in the urban planning process. This paper attempts to investigate how utmost the Internet has been successful in doing so. Urban Development Planning The Planning Authorities formulate festering plans for the urban, semi-urban and rural sectors. The entire development planning process involves the services of a wide range of professionals. They let in civil engineers, architects, environmental engineers, geographers, real estate and property managers, surveyors, cartographers, community association managers, surveying technicians and also market and survey researchers (U. S Department of Labor, 2008, p. 222). The Role of the Internet The Internet has primarily been used to computerize the existing processes of talk between the Government and the community people. Citizens bind used the e-mail to exchange information with the Government officials quite of writing hard copies of letters. The Community people ready accessed information regarding urban development activities, on ad hoc websites instead of reading pamphlets and reports. They could download this information from the Internet as a digital copy if they indispensable it. Many urban planning bodies have posted an extensive amount of information regarding their plans and programmes on these websites. primitively there used to be newspaper notices and official records regarding the same. The citizens can access a wide pastiche of planning related documents on the internet which sometimes also includes the agendas of urban planning board. Many planning agencies have adopted Geographic Inf ormation Systems (GIS) on their websites which have allowed the citizens to access GIS data and design their own maps. In 2004, a survey was conducted on the websites of 582 cities of the U.S.A which had recorded a population of 50,000 or more in the 2000 Census. It was found that 55% of the websites posted the urban plans of the Civic Authorities and 35% of them provided an e-mail address for the citizens to communicate. 37% of the websites also enumerated the major points of discussion of planned meetings with the community people. (Goodspeed 2008 p29 Conroy & Cowley, 2004) Brody, Godschalk and Burby have identified five areas where the Internet has play a significant role in facilitating community participation in urban planning and development. some(prenominal) of these areas still offer considerable scope for the Internet to function as a significant strong point of communication (Goodspeed, 2008). 1) Providing Information to the Community and Providing them with Opportunitie s to influence Planning Decisions There are urban planning websites that have a provision for the citizens to write their views in an open forum where the planning authorities can explicate these opinions following a process of exchange of views. The website of PlanNYC (a student run site concerning urban planning) has allowed website visitors to post their comments. Similarly, blogs have been launched on the internet by some communities that have the provision for the residents to post their opinion on a variety of topics relating to urban development planning. A group called E-Democracy.org has launched a forum which facilitates